HAL 9000 wants to be your Mac screensaver

Remember the iconic HAL 9000 computer from the film 2001: A Space Odyssey? We all wanted our own HAL, even though he pretty thoroughly crashed in the movie: "Open the pod bay doors, HAL."

The folks at the HAL Project have been involved with simulating the look of HAL for years. Their first project was an animated desktop back in 1999. The screensaver version of the HAL GUI has been around for years, but it's recently had a major update to provide smooth animation and really authentic simulations of the HAL screens.

The screensaver is free, but there is a US$5 version that eliminates the splash screen and has eight HAL screens with the HAL unit in the middle. To be honest, I prefer the free version because it fills the full screen of my Mac, but I donated the five bucks for the paid version because I appreciate what the HAL Project is doing.

It's a striking screensaver, and really looks just like the HAL screens from the movie. Kudos. 2001: A Space Odyssey director Stanley Kubrick would be proud.

The HAL screensaver has just been updated to work on Mavericks, and you can get it at the HAL Project website. Look around a little bit to see what they are doing, and enjoy this tribute to one of the great movies of all time.